Belgium and Canada have similar positions. Each sits on its continent, incontournable as the French say, undeniably there, but largely ignored by its larger neighbours.

Consider Belgium today. It is in the midst of a major political crisis. You haven't noticed? Neither has most of Europe.

As of Nov. 5, the country achieved an unenviable record — 148 days without a real government, 148 days since a general election produced a stalemate. The previous record was in 1988 and the cause was the same and one that will be familiar to Canadians — language.

There are not two, but three official languages in Belgium, a lot for a country of 10 million inhabitants. But only two count, French and Dutch.

The Flemish speak Dutch in the province of Flanders and they are the majority, making up somewhere between 56 and 58 per cent of the country's population. The Walloons speak French and live in the south next to France. To complicate matters, Brussels, the capital, is largely French-speaking but it lies in Flanders.

What would Tintin do?

Curiously, few outside the political class in Belgium seem to be taking this crisis too seriously. There is a reason for that. Belgium is known for … well, what is Belgium known for? Beer, of course. There seem to be almost as many of those as Belgians, and moules et frites, mussels and french fries, and chocolate, and … comics.

Yes, tiny Belgium is a world leader in the production of comics and comic book heroes, starting with the boy reporter Tintin.

The comic approach appeals to Belgians. Listen to Rik Torfs, a Flemish professor of government and religion: "We only produce useless things such as beer and chocolates. So we are an absolute centre of mediocrity.

"And that's a good reason to be in favour of the survival of Belgium. As we are a centre of mediocrity, nobody envies us, nobody hates us. And that's nice."

Torfs is famous in Flanders, not because of his intellectual prowess as a professor but because he moonlights on a TV quiz show called The Cleverest Person in the World. It has one million viewers. That's one-sixth of Flanders.

Torfs is a sort of prosecuting judge, insulting the contestants so that they like it, as he puts it. He uses the same technique on his country.

His guide to Belgian politics is pithy: "Anything serious coming from Belgium, don't trust it."

What national anthem?

It's a motto Belgium's embattled prime minister-designate seems to be taking, if not seriously, then conscientiously. Yves Leterme is a Flemish politician, leading the largest coalition of parties trying to form a government.

On Belgium's national holiday, July 21, he was asked what the day was commemorating. He didn't know. (The correct answer was the swearing in as head of state of Belgium's first king in 1830.) Then Leterme was asked whether he knew Belgium's national anthem. Of course, he said, and began singing La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France. It's perhaps not surprising he's having trouble forming a government.

There are more serious reasons for Belgium's political crisis. For one, the country no longer has any national parties.

Four decades ago, the leaders of Belgium tried to clarify the vexed language issue by drawing a line through the belly of the country.

To the north, in Flanders, every official word spoken and written — in government departments, municipal city halls, schools, universities — would be Dutch.

To the south, in Wallonia, French would be official. (In a small eastern enclave tucked up against Germany, German would be the official language of about 75,000 Belgians). Brussels, situated in Flanders, would be bilingual.

Surgery required

This led to some drastic changes. The university of Louvain was a jewel of French-language learning, founded in 1425. But after the drawing of the language line, the university found itself in the Flemish sector. And so, in the 1970s, everything and everyone — books, faculties, professors, students — all were moved south. Not far south, just 30 kilometres and just across the language line. A new university — indeed a new town, Louvain La Neuve — was built. And the old one became the University of Leuven, where everything would be in Dutch.

The drastic surgery offered only temporary remission. By the 1980s, the national parties were splitting apart. Where once there was a national Christian Democrat party, now there are two — one Flemish and one Wallon. And the Flemish Christian Democrats did a deal with a small separatist party, the NVA, with the goal of forming the largest block in the Belgian parliament. The NVA wants Flanders to declare its independence from Belgium.

The Christian Democrat-NVA block achieved its electoral goal. But, thanks to the constitutional tradition that there should be a government with an equal number of Dutch- and French-speaking ministers, this has led to surreal political negotiations. Imagine the Bloc Québécois as part of a negotiating team to form a federal coalition government.

To add spice to the constitutional stew, there is a second, much bigger separatist party, not in the poorer, smaller section of the country, Wallonia, but also in Flanders. The Vlaams Belang, which calls for independence for Flanders and is accused of being rabidly right-wing by its opponents, takes 25 per cent of the votes and seats in the Flanders provincial parliament.

The Flemish have a long and well-developed sense of grievance. For decades they and their language were considered backward by the French-speaking elite. Now that Flanders is the rich part of the country, they resent paying subsidies to struggling Wallonia. A recent opinion poll suggested support for Flanders' independence had risen to 46 per cent.

Think of it in Canadian terms: it's as if the support for separation was being driven by Ontario and the West, not by Quebec.

Asking the Big Smurf

But not to worry, says Torfs. This is Belgium.

Watch Don Murray's documentary, The Belgian Stand-off (Runs 16:44)

"It's like asking questions on divorce immediately after the quarrel. The bottles are still on the floor, the wine glasses on the table. At that moment everybody wants to divorce, to separate. But a few days, weeks, months later, we are very happy to be with our old enemies again."

Maybe, but the rot is so deep it has soaked into the comics. Along with Tintin, Belgium has given the world the Smurfs. And these tiny blue creatures, like bigger Belgians, have managed, in one of their albums, to get themselves into a linguistic tangle.

It begins when a Smurf asks another for a bottle opener, a "bottle-Smurfer" in his parlance. His neighbour insists it's called a "Smurf-opener." They can't agree; the quarrel escalates.

And here Willem de Graeve, deputy director of the Belgian Museum of Comic Art, takes up the story: "So they go to the Big Smurf and ask him who is right. The Big Smurf says, I can't say because both are right, but they're not satisfied with this answer. It goes further and further. They decide one day to split the village in two and they make a border. You can't pass the border because you have two camps of Smurfs, speaking two languages. Now it's obvious that this is a real allusion to the situation in Belgium."

If the Big Smurf can't solve that one, who can save Belgium?

[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]